The ritual of English tea time is believed to have originated in the late 1700's when Anna,Duchess of Bedford, ordered that a plate of cakes be sent up to her with her afternoon cup of tea. The Duchess chronically experienced a “sinking feeling” (what we would term “low blood sugar”) in the late afternoon. To tide her over the long hours between meals she turned to carbohydrates.
Other royals immediately copied the Duchess, and afternoon tea parties became quite fashionable. Low tables were set up in front of sofas and chairs, and the ladies found a new opportunity to show off pretty clothes, fine china, embroidered linen tablecloths and napkins, and silver tableware.
Tea time was also the time to exchange juicy gossip and serve refreshments. Soon darling little sandwiches and sweet pastries as well as scones were being arranged on decorative stands and plates for the ladies' pleasure. The tea party mania quickly spread across the Atlantic where tea was already enjoyed as a beverage. This fondness for tea was later suppressed by the patriotic Americans during the era immediately preceding the American Revolution because of the unreasonable British tax on tea. However, by April 27,1776, Congress announced in the Philadelphia Packet that “the drinking of tea can now be indulged.” The custom of afternoon tea parties was not really revived in this country, though, until the mid-1800's, when Victorian ways were in vogue here. Leisure-class American ladies began having “kettledrums” at 4 p.m.. “Kettledrums”was called that in connection with the term “teakettle” . Petits fours and other dainty delights were served amid Victorian opulence. A Victorian diarist, Maud Berkeley (Maud: The Illustrated Diary of a Victorian Woman,Chronicle Books,1987) gave an anecdote concerning tea time: "Mrs. Barnes had out a lovely tea-cloth for her tea-party, worked all over with cyclamens and honeysuckle. Shoggie Boucher, unused to such dainty, contrived to slop his tea all ove
A.To define the nature of Victorian tea time
B.To prove that tea time is fashionable in America
C.To exemplify how exquisite an English tea time ritual was
D.To contrast the difference between English and American tea time